YEP Letters: April 16

YOU REPORTED that “hundreds of people are dying in Leeds and Wakefield each year due to the pollution in our air” and that “long-term exposure to air pollution attributed to 2,567 deaths in the Yorkshire and Humber in 2010 – and 25,000 nationwide, a new report from Public Health England” (YEP, April 11).

Given that this pollution was largely caused by diesel emissions from vehicles we should be asking our elected councils, which now have responsibility for public health, what they are going to do about it, and where are their plans for a clean, affordable, health-promoting 21st century transport system which would help our cities to be pleasant, safe and welcoming. It’s all very well getting the Tour de France to start in Leeds this year, but after it goes what will have been gained if we’re back to the same old traffic-clogging, lung-choking death sentences - approved by the petrol-heads in the Town Hall?

Come on, Leeds Council. Wake up! This is the 21st Century. You may think that the ironically named New Generation Transport (NGT) scheme is some sort of answer but even its promoters admit that it will result in increased emissions, due to the trolleybus getting precedence at junctions thus causing all other traffic to wait.

More pollution; more deaths. It makes me wonder if we should extend the law covering corporate homicide.

Colin Noble, Leeds Green Party, Chapel Allerton, Leeds

Responsibility of green space

IN RESPONSE to P Kilroy (YEP, April 5) any home owner has a responsibility to his/her neighbours. Any public building has to show future planning that serves a need for the community it represents. A landowner has the greatest responsibility to future generations in how and why it disposes of open green space.

True, there is a public park 400 yards away but it wasn’t good enough for the Girls High School to do sports so on why do you think it’s suitable for our local primary schools. Is it that they don’t have a blade of grass between them and they have to make do with playground sports?

There is already planning permission for a housing estate on the main site of the Girls High School, what we are campaigning for is to release the sports hall with swimming pool and playing field to the future generations of the people of Leeds because I am sure there would be home and away fixtures that all of us Loiners would benefit from.

Leeds has always had a strong sense of civic pride, its been Labour dominated for years but even the Council can’t fight the business sector and it is money and influence. When you visit Europe you see the sports set up their communities have and they are not dissimilar to what is proposed to be demolished and turned into a supermarket and housing estate that we don’t need or want.

Sit at home, watch TV and be told what to think or wake up and smell the grass/roses, while you still can.

Campaign is cam pain. Not taken lightly.

AK Roy, Hyde Park, Leeds

An oasis of floral beauty

HOW LOVELY to see the much lamented Civic Hall flower beds in the recent Memory Lane photograph.

That area was a quiet oasis for anxious or bereaved visitors to the Infirmary at the heart of a busy city. It is sad to see what a bleak area it has now become.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Welcome for investigation

SO, AT long last the “Big 6” power companies are going to be investigated for ripping the public off with excessive bills.

Why have the present Tory government waited so long to explain why they have been taking the public for a ride and getting away with it?

I would say this to these people: the only way they can make amends is to give some of the money back - yes, I mean rebates.

Regarding the statement made by the power companies that there may be power cuts is absolute nonsense. It is just plain and simple scaremongering - ignore it.

WHEN BRITISH drivers are milked almost dry with the expense of using our roads, why has it taken so long to introduce charges for foreign HGV drivers for their use? With this news comes a statement that the charge is to ‘level the playing field’ as truck drivers have to pay tolls in Europe said a government spokesman.

If these charges are approved and initiated, those imposing them should also bear in mind that British car drivers also have to pay tolls when using motorways abroad. When we are constantly being told we are short of funds to repair the abominable state of our roads, shouldn’t we also charge foreign car drivers for the use of ours? If not, why not? Personally I have paid some hundreds of pounds on their roads, just to get to the sun quicker on short holidays, and have had to bear the cost.

Ernest Lundy, by email

The easy way to get ten a day

Thank you to Jayne Dawson for her wonderful and witty piece on ten a day. Here are a few tips that I’ve learnt:

1. You can’t go from 0 to 10 in a week. You are not a car engine. Build up your ten a day gradually.

2. Yorkshire is cold for ten months of the year, so don’t even try to live on cold lollo rosso and celery. You need hot food. Use the microwave and stop the crunching. Tomatoes are a vegetable not a fruit, so are good for achieving your target. For breakfast, take 14 baby tomatoes, put them in a bowl with a lid and cook them for 4 or 5 minutes on medium. Add sultanas to your cereals, and before you leave the house in the morning you will already have had four of your ten. If you get fed up with tomatoes every day, cut up a cooking apple, and add a bit of cinnamon.

3. You are a busy working girl (well, you know what I mean) and you can’t live on lettuce leaves. Eat plenty of hot vegetables. Being Irish, I have always felt genetically drawn to the potato, but they don’t count for your 10. I have started to replace them with parsnips roasted in sesame oil. You can boil them, but they are nicer roasted. Just top and tail them and wash them and put on a baking tray with a drizzle of oil. They take 35 minutes. Add some broccoli (two portions) and microwave a piece of fish with a few tomatoes and you have a delicious meal. Have the meal with a glass of juice (no added sugar of course). This means that even if you eat no fruit or veg during the day, you are already up to nine or 10. Have a few dates or dried fruit for a late night snack, or a tasty bag of microwaved peas.

4. Prepared veg can be expensive, but how much did the sweets and chocolate cost? I have a rule that I can’t have any chocolate Monday to Friday but I can have as much as I want at the weekend. After my main meal on Saturday and Sunday, I lay out the boxes in front of me with a pot of tea and the night before’s Yorkshire Evening Post, and it is pure heaven. I’ve done this for over 30 years

5. Don’t worry if you don’t make 10 a day every day. You can’t perform miracles, especially when travelling – and with money you save on chocolate and alcohol and junk food, you can do a lot of travelling.